Ghosts
by Shinigami Illusion
Summary: "They're all scared. They're turning into ghosts" - Duo's POV - As if the battle weren't enough, the pilots arrive at a strange school...and Duo learns that he is in fact supporting 4 other people. Yaoi, 1x2 for now.
1. Chapter 1 - Thoughts

Title: Ghosts  
  
Warnings: 1x2, bad language, possible grammar mistakes -_-;;, lemon in later chapters.  
  
Martina/SI: This is a POV of..Duo! ^^ Our favorite man with the braid *Hails* Well, you know how he is often portrayed as the 'weaker' character? I've just come across 'The Duo Anti-Rape Front' and well…why does Duo always get picked on? I suppose that is what inspired this fic…^^ I don't think that I've humiliated Duo in any of my fics, and I don't intend to either. *Glomps Duo* ^___^  
  
Duo: POV of meee-eee, POV of meee-eee ^_^!!  
  
Martina/SI: But after that annoyingly long authors note…the fic!! ^_^ Or at least chapter one…  
  
  
  
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Do you believe in ghosts? Do you? You know, there are several types of ghost. Your standard spirit-running-around-the-attic-with-shackles that little kids are scared of. Then there's your all time favorite coming-back- from-the-dead-to-haunt-people-for-no-reason ghosts, and not to forget those who come back because of some form of unfinished business. Oh joy.  
  
But you've left out one of the most important types of ghosts. The living.  
  
Because when someone sees death day in and day out, it becomes part of them. You can't kill someone, and then leave there untouched. At least I admit it. I don't go out there, into the battlefield, and fight because I derive joy from killing people. Whoever told you that was doing some major bullshitting. They've probably never squished an ant for all I know.  
  
I always thought I was the one with the most trouble, with killing and all, you know? Turns out I was wrong. I know how to stay alive. Maybe it's because I'm Shinigami. Maybe it's because I'm human enough to admit to hating the feel of ending a life with a swift impact of a finger to a button. But what about those who can't tell themselves " I hate killing. "? What about those who fight there, for days on end, ending countless lives?  
  
Lives, now that's a topic on it's own. With one slash of my DeathScythes almighty scythe, I remove an important link in a WEB of lives. I kill a father, a son, a grandfather, who knows? I just sit there, in my cockpit, trying to block out the faces that I know will pop into my head. The ones who were left behind. The ones I didn't kill.  
  
I've cried. Yeah, that's right, you heard me. Come on, who wouldn't? That thing about men not crying, another load of crap. Every single human being needs to let go of some sorrow, to strengthen the souls immunity towards it. To keep going, to put it bluntly. But many don't know how. They're not strong enough to just let tears fall. If you've experienced something really shitty, who's to stop you from crying? What's so shameful about it?  
  
It's like a parasite. If you don't get rid of it, it multiplies. And kills you.  
  
And you, become a ghost.  
  
I used to think that I was weak if I ever shed one tear. Times change. I learnt from people stronger than me, how to cry again. And it feels really good. Refreshing. Getting it out of your system, it's satisfying. And you can get out there again, in the middle of the battlefield, and fight for what you believe in. Without feeling the stab of guilt. Simply because you cried.  
  
But I've learnt something else. Something which is much more important than my own tears.  
  
I've got four other people to take under my wing. I've got four other people to look after, to cheer up.  
  
Trowa, and his silence. I don't think he knows how to cry. People refer to him as 'serious'. I know better. Wufei and his tough attitude, his constant insults and intolerance for weakness. You think they're a display of inner strength? I know better still. Quatre then, he's always smiling, isn't he? Wrong. And Heero. Yeah, Heero. Our Perfect Soldier. He's always so intent on his missions, isn't he? He'll live and die for his missions, won't he? Maybe. But do you think he doesn't feel? He does. And he keeps it so well hidden behind that façade of his. But Shinigami can see past the barriers and masks humans put up. I can see it all so clearly. I can see his fear.  
  
They're all scared.  
  
They're all turning into ghosts.  
  
  
  
TBC…  
  
  
  
A/N: o.O Well..um..this's probably going to be one of those slow fics that I don't work on every day..^^;;;;;;; I'm lazy..eheh..R&R, pleeeeeease ^_^ 


	2. Chapter 2 - Freezing

Title: Ghosts  
  
Warnings: 1x2, bad language, possible grammar mistakes -_-;;, lemon in later chapters.  
  
Martina/SI: No long authors notes this time…just straight into the fic ^_^ Duo, over to you.  
  
Duo: *Evil grin* *Speeds off to narrate*  
  
Martina/SI: Ok, so this is BEFORE (Long before) the first chapter, 'kays? Understand-ness? Yay! ^^  
  
  
  
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"Maxwell!"  
  
I hate it when they say that. I thought we'd be on first name terms by now. I mean what's it been, a year? Two? My name is Duo, Duo, and only Duo. At least from their viewpoint. I snapped around and gave Wufei – the offender – my best impression of the Yuy death glare, which after much exposure to I did pretty well.  
  
"What!?" A grin of course pasted across my face to give the impression of a happy Duo. Men don't show true emotion. If Heero could do it, so could I. I mean all you have to do is wear a solid foolproof mask, be it happy or silent, angry or cold.  
  
Cold, while we're on the subject, is exactly what it was. We were to be lodged at a school in Northern Europe. NORTHERN Europe of all places! Scandinavia, nice area, sure, but it's COLD. Too bad for us it was the easiest way to access the mass of OZ bases in question. It was approximately 11pm, and another light layer of snow was slowly covering the treetops above us. Our Gundams had been safely lodged in some remote area of forestry, and we were heading through negative temperatures to find the school grounds. Life's a bitch.  
  
Wufei and Heero gave me those 'shut-up-or-I'll-kill-you' looks, as they usually did, and for the sake of avoiding a huge row, I shut up. They're always so damn uptight about everything. Don't make noise, Maxwell. You screwed up again, Maxwell. It makes me feel pretty useless. Not that THEY'd care.  
  
"We'll be there in fifteen minutes." Heero stated bitterly, trying to appear as if the cold didn't bother him one bit. But in spandex and a skimpy green shirt, who's to say he was feeling 'warm and cosy'? I wanted to run up to him and hug him, and give him some of my own body warmth. He looked so cold…  
  
Trowa and Quatre were trudging along with Wufei behind them, kicking their way through the thin layer of snow that had penetrated through the thick pines. Heero, mister leader, was in the front as usual. I trailed after him, watching his arms occasionally wrapping themselves around his body to keep some warmth in. It was a hard temptation to resist. His skin was looking almost bluish from where I was standing. I increased my pace and drew up beside him, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. It wouldn't hurt to ask, would it?  
  
"Hey Heero…aren't you cold?"  
  
And he didn't attack me with a glare, or an omae o korosu. Nothing. Not even a frown or a 'Hn'. He just kept walking with his arms wrapped closely around him. A brief, but closer look at his face revealed nothing either. By that I mean none of the mask thing. He looked like a cold little kid, lost in a huge forest full of those haunting shadows you always see in children's books. He looked so innocent and frail without that determined predators look in his eyes.  
  
It was…sweet, actually.  
  
"I'm fine." He quickly moved out of eye range, going faster than I could deal with in the biting cold. I was surprised he didn't drop dead from cold right there and then. Glad he didn't. But that uncovered look in his eyes was a topic the voices in my head wouldn't drop for a long time to come. I'm usually persistent. But I let it drop there. Push it any further, and he might've gone all cold on me again, right? Ok, so I didn't let it drop.  
  
"But you look cold!" I rushed after him in a largely childish manner. Man I should've felt stupid, but I didn't. That's just me.  
  
"I said I'm fine, Duo."  
  
He used my first name. Cold evidently has a SEVERE effect on him. Now here is where I truly let it drop.  
  
"He called me Duo…" as if it was abnormal. Maybe not to other people, but to me, that made my day. If anyone mocks me about those few joys I derive out of the tiniest things, they've decided the date for their doomsday. I didn't pick up on the fact that I'd stopped completely, and it took a pinecone attack to my head – kindly issued by Trowa – to bring me back to my senses. He shook his head and gave me a rare smile as he passed, wrapping a comforting arm around the shivering Quatres shoulder. Yeah. I was jealous. I stared at their retreating backs before willing myself to continue walking. My legs were numb and aching with cold, but at least my clothes covered most of me. I couldn't force my mind to ignore the shivering figure disappearing further ahead past a row of trees.  
  
Trees, trees, and more trees. I was getting mighty sick of those trees. Especially that thick pine scent that wafted up my nose and made me sneeze. The inventor of pine trees shall have a pinecone showed up his or her ass when I meet up with them.  
  
"Duo?"  
  
Quatre was speaking to me again. He was probably the only one who ever talked to me as if I was a human being. RARE thing when you lived around Yuy and Chang…urgh, there I go with THEIR habits. I mean HEERO and WUFEI. Trowa never says very much. Except for those rare grins he gives me that clearly state " I know stuff ". It's scary. Sometimes I wonder if he knows more about me than I do. I guess because he never talks, he listens and watches more. Smart guy.  
  
"Yeah?" Quatre looks like one of those little elves. You know, the cute ones with the shiny hair and happy eyes. The forest scenery enhanced that. And at times it seems that he's just as wise as those ancient little people.  
  
"He's cold."  
  
I looked over his shoulder at Heero's retreating back as he trudged through the cold snow. It really did look like one of those sad movies. The scared little child running off to hide in the shadows. And it really isn't so hard to imagine.  
  
"I know."  
  
  
  
TBC…  
  
  
  
A/N: Umm...strange chapter...o.O It leads absolutely nowhere ^^;; Sorta…hehe…don't' worry, this fic will pick up pace soon. I just needed a sound beginning and to get the feel of narrating as Duo ^_^ Reviews much appreciated. 


	3. Chapter 3 - It's only the beginning

Title: Ghosts  
  
Warnings: 1x2, bad language, possible grammar mistakes -_-;;, lemon in later chapters.  
  
SI/Martina: Haven't updated for ages..-_- I'm sorry!  
  
Duo: You should be! *Grabs microphone to narrate again, and grins evilly*  
  
  
  
I didn't see much of the cold little child who called himself Heero much after that. It was as if he'd sensed me watching him, and reinforced the strength of his mask. He was colder towards me than usual. Sucks for me. He snarled at me seven times on the short distance to the school. SEVEN times! That has to be a new record. And all I did was the short choppy sentences to start up a conversation.  
  
"So, Heero…"  
  
He grunted something that sounded remotely like "I don't want to talk to you." I tried again.  
  
"Cold out here, isn't it?"  
  
He growled like a wild animal and looked as if he was about to hit me hard across the face in a famous Yuy punch-o-death. Luckily I moved off by a few meters to prevent the attack.  
  
"Wonder what this school'll be like"  
  
And we were back to the grunting again, and it continued this way. I made a tiny comment or remark, and he growled. I crossed the line and he looked about to explode. But hey, if I was to have Yuy duty again – that was my way of referring to having to spend my time in the same room again – I'd have to get him to be a BIT more social. Or at least, out of the 'I-want- to-kill-Maxwell' mode. It scared me shitless.  
  
"Almost there!" Quatre said cheerfully, having grown tired of the cold himself. He and Trowa were in front now. I WOULD have asked why Heero had chosen to stay in the background, just to tease him, but I think he'd have torn my throat out. Instead I grinned like I usually did, glad that I didn't have to walk around in this sloshing snow for much longer.  
  
Of course, that's when we had to decide who slept in what room. Always we had this discussion. I usually didn't mind the results. It was Wufei who started it this time.  
  
"I don't want Maxwell duty." He spat in my general direction, and I looked hopefully at Heero for some reaction. Nothing. I guess he really does loathe me then. Quatre frowned and said in a calm voice to Wufei.  
  
"You don't call it 'Maxwell Duty', Wufei. He's a human too!"  
  
I can defend myself! Alright, so it was more comforting to always have Quatre there as some form of mother. He seemed to handle it well too. Q- man had always been the maternal figure in our group. Insulting title, but hey, someone had to do it. I was already the 'unwanted rat who is assigned to people as a duty'.  
  
But Wufei hissed some quiet comment at Quatre, and a look of immense hurt spread over his eyes. He quickened his pace, and took a solitary place at the front of the procession. Wufei looked pissed. Trowa was silent. Heero was silent. Everyone was so damn quiet! It'd always been like this lately. Every subject led to either a huge brawl, on Heero's part it'd result in giving people gun wounds, or this long pained silence. We needed family therapy, or something.  
  
And after all that, we still hadn't solved the issue of who was sleeping in what room. Stupid squabble. I swear we sounded like teenage girls on the phone. And we didn't have to argue anyway, Wufei would stay on his own, Quatre would much rather be in the same room as Trowa, and I'd be stuck with Heero.  
  
Not that I minded. It was more him that I was worried about. Now all I had to do was sort this argument out, as I usually did in my own special w-  
  
"I'll stay with Duo. Wufei, the single room. Trowa and Quatre, same one. Get some sleep and I will hack and fix the school records."  
  
That didn't happen. He must have gotten high from pine sniffing or something. To hear Heero say something like 'Get some sleep' or even my NAME is rare. Very rare, a bit too rare actually. And here he was, solving the little disagreement with only a few sentences. Wow. So, when does the world end?  
  
Everyone nodded and a much more comforting silence swept across the group. But still. I wanted to talk. Silence freaks me out; it always has for some odd reason.  
  
"How long are we going to be here? What TEMPERATURE is the air at? Does this mean it's no called 'Maxwell Duty' any more? What's with th-"  
  
And that, is where I got moss shoved into my mouth. Courtesy Heero. The leafy green gack took ages to clean out.  
  
"Duo."  
  
I glared at him, with a few pieces of moss still hanging out of the corner of my mouth, hands on my hips.  
  
"Quiet."  
  
And he walked on as if he shoved moss up people's mouths every single day. I wouldn't put it past him. I felt stupid and it was not a nice feeling. I couldn't help but whine and complain, to be shut up yet again by a death glare from the one and only, Yuy.  
  
"Duo…who…" Quatre had stopped dead in his tracks, and raised a shaking hand to point straight in front of him, in front of us. At something or someone walking straight at us. Straight in front of us was bad. It meant, people could SEE us, which was even worse.  
  
"Oh…"  
  
That wasn't a human…or at least I wished it wasn't. If it were, I'd gladly inhale sulphur dioxide and die.  
  
"My…"  
  
I pleaded and prayed to any higher power out there, be it Shinigami or Santa Clause, that what was coming towards out wasn't supposed to be human.  
  
"God…"  
  
Heero grabbed my arm and hauled me swiftly into the greenery, pushing me behind a tree. The few seconds that followed were deadly silent, waiting and watching for any sign that we'd escaped without being seen. Though we were doubtful. The thing was still advancing with slow steps. Staring blankly ahead.  
  
"Please don't let it be human…" I heard myself say. It was only a few steps away from us on the side of the road. I was hoping with my entire being that it wouldn't stop. That it'd just keep walking, and transport itself as far away from me as possible. Please.  
  
It was a child. Pale and white as snow. With red-rimmed dead eyes draining lines of dried blood down a skeletal face. It had no clothes on its upper body, only a pair of torn and muddy shorts. It was so thin. The skin was stretched drum-tight across the frame of bones.  
  
But that wasn't what caught our eyes. I could see it from a far, even.  
  
The body was hollowed out. The chest cavity was torn up, exposing a vacuum of empty space and dried parts of corpse. It's throat was open, and the spine was the only thing that could be seen, and beyond that stretched the landscape behind it. Hollow. It was hollow. And walking.  
  
"Holy shit…SHIT!" I had to clamp a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming, and felt nausea sinking in. It twisted and burnt my stomach, and a bitter taste built up in the back of my mouth. It was sickening. Just sickening. Grotesque, disgusting, and utterly wrong.  
  
And it was, despite my pleas, human. It was as human as any of us.  
  
I'd seen the walking dead. The child passed us, and kept walking. And endless dreary rhythm, stiff but so smooth at the same time. Walking. Walking, until we couldn't see it any more. We were in Scandinavia. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a thick cover of unexplored pine forests.  
  
I felt a slight stab of pain in my arm, but couldn't react. Heero's fingernails were digging into the flesh of my lower arm. His knuckles were white, but his face was even more so. He couldn't move, much less speak.  
  
And things had only begun to get weird.  
  
  
  
TBC…  
  
A/N: Ooo..wonder what this shall evolve into… @_@ I like the scary settings…it gives a lot of great excuses, as you shall see in later chapters ^.^ Review, puh-lease-ness. 


	4. Chapter 4 - Hiding the tears

Title: Ghosts  
  
Warnings: 1x2, bad language, possible grammar mistakes -_-;;, lemon in later chapters.  
  
SI/Martina: Neeeeeext chapter ^.^ Duo, over to you.  
  
Duo: *Clears throat, sits in his favourite chair with his feet on the table, and grabs microphone*  
  
SI/Martina: And you're on in five…four…three…two…*BLEEEEEEEP*  
  
  
  
"Shit…"  
  
That was all I could say. Shit. S-H-I-T. The 'thing' disappeared around a curb in the fading path, and left an eerie silence suspended in the air. It seemed that the very ground it walked on had just died, right there and then. I would have broken out in a cold sweat if it weren't for the temperature around me freezing water to ice in less than a second. Heero's nails were still digging painfully into my arm and showing very little signs of relaxing. But I didn't care. It somehow felt comforting, to know that even if it WAS by acting as a scratching post, I was of use to someone. I helped, in some tiny way.  
  
"School…now…go…" Quatre's stiff mumblings could be heard behind me. I nodded, with my eyes still transfixed on the place where the 'thing' had disappeared. I felt Heero's grip on my arm ease slightly, but he still held on to me. One glance at his face showed a Heero scared stiff.  
  
He was mortally afraid of ghosts. Of all the things there is to have a phobia of, his was the spectral image of a ghost.  
  
"Heero?" My tone was as monotonous as his as I shook his shoulder lightly, only to get no response from the blank face. I could swear he was shaking, and I don't know whether it was the cold or fear, but he was pale as snow. Entranced, that's what he was. He was still staring down the overgrown forest path for any sign of the gory child returning. I wanted to keep him like that. Digging his fingernails into my arm, I liked the pain for some strange reason. But this was out of fear…  
  
"Heero!" I shook him more harshly, and he snapped out of the spell and looked at me with wide eyes for a second. Wide, fearful eyes. Tear glazed but clear as glass. No shadows. No fog. Nothing.  
  
"Hn."  
  
I've always been amazed at how he could revert to 'Mr. Perfect Soldier' in less than a nanosecond. This had to be a new record. One second he was in front of me, the next, turned around at superhero speed and marching off down the path at what could be the pace of a power walk. I glanced at Quatre, who gave Trowa a fearful look. Wufei simply shook his head and sighed, muttering something that sounded oddly like 'coward' and broke into a run to catch up. Hey, it seemed the wisest thing to do. We all broke into a run, past the remaining gathering of trees that looked more ghastly now than any other time I'd looked at the things. Man it was creepy out there, in the snow tinged world of Northern Europe. And with bloody little children running about? It doesn't paint a very pretty picture.  
  
"Slow down, man!" I was more than willing to try and shake off the chilled feeling that little incident had given me. Obviously, Heero was too. In his own special way : Ignoring Maxwell totally and completely, in all ways known to mankind. Yeah, that's about it.  
  
"Heero! Hey! Slow the pace down a bit, I'm freezin'!" I yelled from about three meters behind the leader of the marching band. Since this was ignore Duo time, I of course, duh, received no response and instead had to speed up to catch him. I think the others were somewhere behind us…keeping their own nice comfortable pace.  
  
"Come on, slow down a bit? Talk about it, at least!?" Pftz, I wish. Nevertheless, I'm persistent. So there.  
  
"Come on, me, Duo. You can talk to me!" I grabbed hold of his shoulder and was dragged along behind him in some way or another. Yes, that's it, *talk* to me.  
  
"No."  
  
Oh the joys of the one word responses. I was starting to develop a skill for those by now. I knew most of them by heart. It wasn't so hard seeing there was only two, 'hn' and 'no', and the occasional sentence but those usually varied slightly.  
  
"Fine, but you really did look freaked over there with…with that thing and all." I guess I should have kept my mouth shut. I really should have. But I couldn't help it, I'd been as freaked out as he had. I just had a different way of coping with it from him.  
  
He whirled around, quite suddenly, and grabbed me by the neck in an iron grip. His hand was cold and damp with sweat, despite the sub-zero levels of atmospheric temperature, as he wrapped his fingers around my throat in a choking way. He glared the most heated death glare I'd ever received at me, and hissed quietly straight in my face.  
  
"Drop it."  
  
Just that simple. Drop it. Drop it, let sleeping dogs lie. And he gave me that hint in such an obvious way that I just followed after him like some damn lapdog after that, watching his back for him, keeping both my eyes out for him…and not feeling at all burdened by it. More at ease, knowing he was safe with me. He needed me. He just didn't know it yet. He did need me, didn't he?  
  
"Eh…Sorry." Ok, so it was lame. But what else was I to say to him? Just shut up and follow? That's not my style.  
  
"Doesn't matter." I wanted to believe him on that point. But I don't think I ever would be able to. I'm not blind to everything, as I might make myself appear to be. Believe it or not, I see everything that goes on in their lives. I see all the pain he feels. It's a skill I've developed. And what do I do? Hide behind a curtain of 'happy', making me seem like an immature two year old.  
  
But someone's got to be cheerful. Might just as well be me, eh?  
  
"So what's our mis-" I got a hand clamped over my mouth, and almost toppled over when I was dragged into a bush and practically smashed down against the ground. Heero was holding a finger to his own lips, signalling me to shut the hell up. Being immersed in my deep though, I hadn't noticed that I was five meters away from colliding with a solid brick wall. And even less obvious to me was the large window in that brick wall, which would expose me to whoever was inside. Thank Shinigami for Heero.  
  
A quick survey around the area and he noted that the rest of the gang were gone. It took me a while to remember that our plan was usually this way, to separate and enter the building from two sides in case we got intercepted. But I had an excuse. Or just not.  
  
"We have to climb up the wall." Heero voiced quietly, eyes fixed on a pitch- black window in the fourth or fifth story of the gigantic castle-resembling structure. It really was in the middle of nowhere, the school compound bordered the forest in its ghastly appearance. I felt like an idiot. Climbing right into Draculas lair.  
  
"Go ahead and climb, I ain't moving." I couldn't help but think of the last time I'd had to climb up a wall… tree branches, and falling on them, causes a lot of pain. Heero fixed me with a glare, but I persistently shook my head.  
  
"I ain't gonna climb it!!" I retorted, folding my arms firmly over my chest. Heero narrowed his eyes and seemed to be giving me a last chance…but I wasn't going to change my mind.  
  
"You will." He snapped quietly at me, turning his back and surveying the wall quickly, before hoisting himself up on the bricks jutting out from the wall and escalating it as if he was Spiderman. Both had masks, so it was a good fit.  
  
"Hey…you…you're not leaving me down here are you?" I couldn't believe he would do that…and at the same time it was the obvious thing for him to do. When annoyed, leave whatever it is that annoys you somewhere on the ground 20 feet below you.  
  
"Heero!?" Ok, so I panicked, but I had good reason to. I *HAD* seen the ghost thing, and I did *NOT* want to be alone with that thing out in some remote forest. He glanced down at me, still in the process of climbing with speedy progress up the wall. I gave him my best 'Cute Little Duo' look. It worked sometimes. No idea why. His glares had the same effect on me on a larger scale, even though they were intended for something different…  
  
It took quite a bit of mental coaxing.  
  
/=/ Pleeeeeease?/=/  
  
/=/Hn./=/  
  
/=/Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeese?/=/  
  
But being a master at the game, I got my wish in the end. I watched with a grin as Heero dropped to the ground again, swift and agile as a cat, and stalked towards me with a blank expression on his face as usual.  
  
"You will pay for this." He hissed at me, and I couldn't help but smiling and nodding quietly in return. Then a question formed in my mind. What…exactly, was he going to do? I was about to ask when…  
  
"Heero how exactly are you go-hmph!"  
  
I was grabbed around the waist and found myself hoisted over his right shoulder as if I had passed out. In no time at all, he had grabbed hold of the rough surface of the bricks once again and was climbing at a slightly slower pace with me across his shoulder. And the view, was scary. Especially since I felt like falling.  
  
"Eeek! Heero!" I flailed and thrashed, but soon found that it gave more of an unwanted result than anything else and took firm hold of Heeros thin shirt, gritting my teeth and trying my best not to pass out for real.  
  
"Hn. Keep still."  
  
"Keep still!? I could fall at any moment and you want me to ke-aaaaah!" And that, is when he slipped. Heero Yuy, slipped. Goddamnit, he slipped!  
  
"Shit!" I heard myself say, burying my face in his shoulder and squeezing my eyes shut. I did NOT want to see him dangling off the edge of the window with one hand, and I did NOT want to realize that I was completely and utterly dependant on him for survival through this ordeal. This, was crappy.  
  
A low grunt and the sharp movement of muscles brought us up on the window ledge. Somewhere in my mind I heard the window latch click open and a draft of old-smelling air wash over me with its musty stench.  
  
"Shit, shit, shit, shit…" I still thought I was in mortal danger, with 20 feet between the ground and me. I've never liked heights, even if it isn't very much of a height.  
  
Gravity took hold of my body and I tumbled roughly to the floor, landing in a heap. My eyes were still shut tightly and I wouldn't have noticed that I was shivering violently from cold if my mind had been functioning properly. I was freezing cold…nauseous…I felt shitty. It was all too much for one night. The temperatures at sub-zero, unidentified ghosts, heights, almost falling twenty feet into solid ground. After a long and tiring trip in a cramped Gundam, anyone would have been exhausted. I wanted, and needed, to sleep. Sleep…  
  
Surprisingly, a pair of strong arms wrapped themselves around my waist and pulled me up against a lightly clad chest, cradling me lightly and warming my frozen body through the body contact. Heero rested his weight against the window, panting slightly with exhaustion from having just climbed up a wall with twice the weight he was used to. His arms held me tightly up against himself, in a bundle much like an infant. Soothing and warm, so tender for a soldier. Tender for Heero.  
  
"Nn…" I tried to thank him feebly, but a huge dose of sleep was taking over my system. A thin hand brushed a wisp of hair away from my face and I could swear I heard a 'no problem' voiced from somewhere above me.  
  
And the exhausting feeling of sleep enveloped me completely, and my eyelids slid shut. I was dimly aware of being carried, the rhythmic movements of a walk lulling me further into my dream state for every step.  
  
And choking sobs. Sobs inspired by delayed fear that he tried to quench.  
  
But I heard them, with my head so close to his chest.  
  
I heard Heero crying.  
  
  
  
TBC…  
  
A/N: Eeek..gotta go to bed now ^^ Review, puh-lease-ness! 


	5. Chapter 5 - Heero

Title: Ghosts  
  
Warnings: 1x2, bad language, possible grammar mistakes -_-;;, lemon in later chapters.  
  
SI/Martina:…this is going all..cute..muaha!  
  
Duo:*Smirk*  
  
Heero: You're making me look weak..  
  
Duo: Aww, we all know you're a big softie under the..er..shell.  
  
Heero: *Death glare*  
  
Duo: O.o"  
  
  
  
I woke up an hour or so later, in a fairly comfortable wooden bed, which was unusual for a boarding school. A cool draft was issuing from the still open window, and I shuddered in dismay, grimacing internally at Heero for leaving it open, as he was nowhere to be seen. The recollection of events that ran through my mind a few seconds later a top speed only adding to the quaking my body was going through.  
  
But as soon as my ears had adjusted to sifting the different sounds out, I could make out the clattering of keys of a laptop. For once the sound wasn't agonizingly annoying.  
  
"Nnn…Heero?" I rolled over where I was laying, getting my braid all tangled around my neck, and saw that Heero was sitting on the bed next to mine, busily working away at the computer which had been hooked up with all sorts of wires and cables. Most likely to hack into the schools main computer. I was surprised that this place had a main computer too, since it looked like something out of a medieval set movie.  
  
Heero, obvious to reason, said nothing as he kept his vision focused on the coolly lit screen before him, colors shifting on a range of blue and aqua as the computer did it's work in infiltrating all our pre-decided data into the system. I didn't exactly mind much, I'd grown accustomed to the stone- cold treatment. But despite my mileage in the feeling of being totally rejected by him, it was still a sinking feeling that left you slightly depressed. And then, when he did speak to you, your world lit up with uncountable joys. For a quiet antisocial impassive, he's a bastard at stirring up emotion.  
  
I took a tired look around the room. It wasn't half bad, actually, in contrast with all the other hellholes we'd lived in. On the contrary, it looked like one of the Winner estates. Except for the little detail of it being almost intolerably cold. Whoop-dee-doo.  
  
Not to mention, that being cold and tired, but not able to sleep, makes me very restless. And a restless 'Maxwell' isn't fun to deal with. It leads to many questions. And possibly an attempt at blowing a random object up, if it progresses to that.  
  
"Oi. Heero."  
  
"Hn." Busy with his precious machine. I wanted to brutally smash and maul that plastic distraction. I hated it on the same level as I did the war on many occasions.  
  
"Talk to me man!" And with that, a flailing of arms that sent me straight onto the rock hard floor below in a tangle of limbs. I had obviously miscalculated the strength of my arms at that particular moment in time. I let out a miserable groan where I lay, head bashed against the cold surface of granite rock, and heaved a sigh to enforce that I, was not entirely happy.  
  
Heero peered over the edge of his bed; one eyebrow raised a fraction of a centimeter. Of course, he still held the computer tightly in his hand, so not to appear as if he actually gave a damn that I was suffering down there. I gave him the most pitiful look I could muster up, but it appeared more like an annoyed glare directed at the laptop.  
  
"Help me up, will ya?" I pleaded, holding out one hand. I didn't notice until then that I was shaking. I seriously and truly could not keep my hand still. I must have looked like a nervous wreck, pale and ghostly, because his other eyebrow escalated to the same height as the one already raised.  
  
"You look like a ghost." He stated calmly, giving me an indifferent look at the mention of the word 'ghost', though I'd thought he'd be scared to voice it. I obviously overestimated his fear. It didn't affect him. I suppose it's because he's a soldier. All emotions, he processes into something else. Fear, hate, anger, happiness, he transforms them a different matter to be used on the battlefield. Heck, he's basically made only out of feeling, the only difference being in the way he uses it.  
  
And that's the thing, isn't it? How you use things? What good is knowledge if you can't use it, right? Maybe that's the way he's been trained. To turn all emotions into that perfection and destruction he can cause in war. To mold his humanity into the flawlessness of a machine, and more perfect still. Because a machine can't make it's own decisions based on what it sees, feels, and comprehends. It has to be preprogrammed, while Heero is the kind of machine that uses itself of both preprogrammed material, and that strange power he possesses. Where else could it come from but from pure human intuition and feeling?  
  
But anyway. It may be a kick-ass skill to have in combat. But when the war is over…then what will he do? I feel sorry for him. It's as if he doesn't know that when the war ends, in essence, so will he…and I don't want that to happen. I'm won't let it happen.  
  
I smirked up at him in the same second as the thoughts ran through my mind. The mind's an amazing thing, even I will admit it. Amazing, but cruel. Despite what the ancients thought, thought comes from the mind. Not the heart. It's a cute story though.  
  
"Yeah? Maybe that's because I just saw one." I couldn't help but give him a subtle 'meaningful look' at that comment. Which I of course shouldn't have, because he abruptly turned back to the computer, and it was only because I was right next to him that I could see an almost invisible hint of annoyance traced across his face, for less than a second.  
  
"You aren't gonna talk to me, are you." I asked, slightly bitter in the way I sounded out the sentence. He took a pause from the incessant typing, and looked up at me with calm yet cruel appearing eyes. Nothing ever changed with those eyes. But you could always interpret what he wanted. This time, it was for me to shut the hell up, and get out of his face.  
  
"There is nothing to talk about." He almost snapped, returning to his laptop immediately. A blue icon, flashing dimly, indicated that Trowa and Quatre had made it safely to their dorms opposite ours. A red icon, showed Wufei had too. I wasn't giving up that easily.  
  
"You were scared stiff when that thing appeared." I commented, dragging myself up from the pile I had landed in on the floor, and scooted across to his bed, shoving him over so I had some sitting space.  
  
The numbers on the screen, made no sense to me.  
  
He gave me a sour look, smirking slightly at my incomprehension of the binary code. Or as far as I could tell, it was a smirk. Perhaps it was just me looking at him from an angle. I wonder if he knows I look at him. I wonder if he knows that I'm always watching him, to make sure he isn't in trouble. I wonder if he knows, that in battle, I'm always watching his back. If he knows that out there that day, I was more scared for him than I was for myself.  
  
"Come on, admit that you were!" If I had common sense, I would have known not to tickle him. If there's one flaw he has, it's his senses. Touch him in the side, between the ribs, and you get a very automated punch aimed straight at your face with a lot of force backing it up.  
  
That was my second trip to the floor, as the energy put behind that punch sent me hurdling towards the cold tiled doom that was, the uncarpeted floor approximately half a meter down. I couldn't help but let a strangled whine escape my lips as my hand flew up to my now impaired eye, which I could almost feel going a tinge of bluish black, swelling up and closing.  
  
I opened my remaining eye to see Heero glaring at me with a look that could freeze hell over and give Satan a phobia of everything associated with cold. I got the message. One. You don't tickle Heero, under any circumstances be they the deciders of life or death. Two. Never ask Heero a question involving things he doesn't want to talk about, or doesn't wish to admit to.  
  
He glared at me until the piercing feeling his eyes gave me forced me to scramble up into my bed again, drawing the covers up over my head and burying my aching face under the pillow, staring into the darkness below the sheeted pillowcase. The clatter of keys didn't start up again until I was completely hidden from view, and I felt the freezing glare withdrawn from me.  
  
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he really wasn't affected at all by the 'thing'. Maybe it was all just my rich imagination, pretending that he needed me. I sighed inwardly, wishing that I'd stop creating hopeful scenarios. They were all just visions of something I wanted but couldn't have for a million tons of gold. I wanted him to need him. I wanted to be the person that the great Heero Yuy relied on for comfort. I guess he didn't need any, after all. Maybe 'Maxwell Duty' was justified. I had to keep myself from crying again. I felt hopelessly useless in his world of pixels and war. His computer and his Gundam. Those are the only two things he gives a damn about. I heaved another shaking sigh. I thought I'd seen what was behind the mask. The child that Heero really was, trapped within a cage of his own emotions, controlled to be used for the ferocity of war and combat. Perhaps his mask, went all the way to the core. Because he'd worn it for so long.  
  
But the annoying little question 'what if', still remained clearly displayed in my mind. I peered out with my good eye, between the folds of my blanket. He was still sitting there, typing away, with a look as if he never tired across his face. And I wondered if he ever did, get tired that is.  
  
My eye was sore and vulnerable, and slightest movement caused pain to spasm across my face. He had a ferocious punch. Most people would take at least a week to forgive him for doing that to them. I forgave him the moment his hand impacted with my face. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I can't let go of that perception that he's just like me. Human. A teenage human, shoved into the complex world of warfare before he could learn the beauties of life. Faulty in so many ways that you can no longer see the faults individually. That he needs someone to watch over him as well. To be there when he does get tired. No matter how long it takes.  
  
Maybe it's because I love him.  
  
  
  
A/N: Muaha…sappy…=P I like sap ^.^ Tree-sap is good too. Maple syrup! *cough* Now I need to and read some more cute-ish stuff so I can burst into tears and get funny looks from my parents ^.^ Ehehe…hope ya liked the chapter ^^ 


	6. Chapter 6 - Whispers of the ghosts

Title: Ghosts  
  
Warnings: 1x2, bad language, possible grammar mistakes -_-;;, lemon in later chapters – maybe.

S/I:*Coughs*

Duo: *Grabs microphone and nods importantly…sort of*

Exploding pain being the first thing when you wake up, isn't exactly pleasant.  Neither is it pleasant when you're too exhausted to realize that this pain is coming from your eye, and you just HAPPEN to bash your face against a nightstand some smartass idiot put in the way.

"Goddamnit! Who the fuck put this table in the way!?" I yelled, pressing my hand to my sore swollen eye.  It took me a few seconds to remember who'd give it to me to begin with. Of course.  Heero.  I was staring to have second thoughts about forgiving him for it, until I remembered I already had, in my own 'strange' way.

I looked out through my other moderately well functioning eye, noting that it looked more like night, and from there I realized that we were in Scandinavia. In winter.  That meant you only had a few precious daylight hours to count on. THAT sure helped the whole 'spooky image' I had firmly implanted into my visual image of…the weird place we were at. 

School, that's it, it was a school. Not Draculas castle, or some freaky dungeons. It. Was. A. School.

"Hmph…" Had there been a mirror there, or a very informative Quatre, I'd have been told I looked like I'd been to hell and back in one night.  I hadn't quite gone to that length yet.  But gutted children and fist-a-la-Heero made a good substitute.

"You have history as your first class," came a cold voice from the bathroom, muffled slightly by the sound of water.  Adjusting my already impaired sight, I could dimly make out Heero's…well…anatomy, so to speak, behind the shower curtain.  Too bad there wasn't enough light source to make it transparent.

"Huh?" Oh what a smart thing to say. Makes you sound so intelligent. I sleepily rubbed my eyes…yelped pathetically in pain once more and removed one hand, grumbling angrily.  I'd been shot, tortured…what was up with the eye thing?

"History class," he repeated monotonously, and reached up to rinse his hair…or at least that was what it looked like, from the tiny audience I was given through a crack in the door.  If I hadn't been so tired, I might have taken the risk to tiptoe up to it and open it a bit more, giving the excuse that I was going to brush my teeth or…something.

"Oh…right…yay," I groaned and buried my head – cautiously – back into the soft pillow. It was still pitch black outside, and waking up didn't seem as if it was appropriate just yet.  Not to mention, it was freakin' cold as usual. 

A warm wash of air woke me up a bit, simply because it felt more…comfortable to open my eye – note the refrain from using the plural.  Heero had wrapped a towel around his waist, and obviously stepped out of the shower from what I could barely glance. Not that I was looking…or…well…not really.

"Duo."

I wasn't really listening to his voice, though I must admit that however little he uses it, and however cruel it sounds, he does have a wonderful voice.  It's not one of those horribly deep voices, which sound like old trolls. It has a soft edge to it, sharp would probably describe it better.  And it still doesn't sound anywhere near that of a girl.

"Maxwell."

The Maxwell thing, always gets me.  Always. And he seems to have figured that out, since the only time he actually talks to me is when he's giving an order.  I glared in the general direction of the door and managed to sit up, refraining from making contact with my eye.

"Heero…WHY exactly do we have to attend classes when we're…well…saving the world from destruction!?" I retorted, shuffling over to the bathroom.  I noticed I was still wearing what I had yesterday, the punch I'd received as a 'good-night kiss' being enough to make me forget about changing. Casting a tired look around I saw our bags put in a corner of the room. I had absolutely no clue in hell as to how they'd gotten there.

"Uhh…Heero? The bags came from…where?" I reached up and scratched my had in bewilderment.  It was a stupid thing to note in the first place.  As long as the bags were here, who really gave two craps? 

"I went to get them. When you were asleep," came a reply, in a slightly more bitter voice than normal as the clatter of a toothbrush was heard, and later the scraping of plastic bristle against teeth.  He didn't seem to like the idea of 'outside' very much, as I could expertly detect through an almost non-existent hinting at it in his voice. Ha. I could decode the Yuy monosyllabic language.  I must be very good.

"Run in to any of the lil' gutted children?" I joked, reaching to grab my portion of the bags while pulling my older clothes off and dumping them at the foot of the bed.  Damn that biting cold.  Why did this place have to be so alive with freezing winds inside as well? Quoting Wu-man, it was an injustice.

 A short pause followed.  The brushing ceased for a moment, and I was aware of what looked like fidgeting on Heero's part, before the hygiene routine of the morning continued, without a reply.  Having joined the pause, I too resumed my hunt for some decent clothing, finding some comfortable – obviously black – articles a few moments later.

I was starting to realize I couldn't force it out of him.  It, being to tell me really how he feels.  Not just now, but through the entire war. What it is he's scared of, what makes him angry, what makes him happy…heck, anything.  Because right now, he isn't content.  And the whole terror everyone's getting from the 'ghost' thing, is tipping the balance.  He's lost that crucial component of humanity, letting go of your feelings. They're all worked into his mind, and can't be revealed to anyone, that being the flaw of a human robot. And in this cyborg, the human was suffering to an extent where it couldn't even recognize it's own torment.

What I REALLY wanted was for him to, at that moment, burst out of the bathroom and run to me, looking a wreck. I wanted him to come to me, hugging me like a child would, and tell me everything that was bothering him.  Then I could comfort him, make him feel all better…I could be his support.

It was selfish, once again, to wish for Heero to become a nervous wreck just so I could comfort him.  And he'd never do it.  Not in a million years, would he hug me intentionally.  But I still couldn't help wondering…the war had been hard on all of us.  Heero especially.  He didn't laugh and joke around like I did.  And it really isn't a mask, on my part. I make the jokes and laugh the laughs because I feel it's necessary, and because I can't damn bloody well help myself.  I wouldn't survive a day without grinning furiously at something, or laughing.  

I suppose that's what the street teaches you. Make use of all the happiness you can muster, since that's what it's there for.  Then there is that element in my 'excessive humour' that's there for them too, for Heero and the others.  But still.  I'm not a miserable person inside. If I were miserable, I'd be showing it.  If I were angry, which I am on occasion, I'd let people know.

But once all of that's out, I'm happy again, and get on with life bearing the scars, but surviving.  It's a different story for him, Heero. His scars never heal.

This is where I get classified as living in pretense.  The worries.  Truth is, I worry about everyone. I just never let that slip.  One reason being, which people usually don't liked being worried about. Wufei would term it as making people feel weak, as if you don't trust them.

But depressed? That I be not.

Heero arrived from his trip to the shower, spandex – I was guessing another pair – on, and rubbing a towel over his face and hair.  Once he withdrew the towel, I couldn't help but point and gape.

"Whoa! Did you get ANY sleep last night man?" 

Dark blue rings framed his eyes, both of which were slightly red rimmed with exhaustion, and he looked paler than I'd remembered.  His brows furrowed slightly to give me a halfassed frown, before he retreated to his portion of the luggage and laboriously pulled a customary green shirt over his head.  

"You didn't sleep at all last night did you…" I murmured, beyond his hearing, despite how good it may be as a Gundam pilot.  This was starting to get out of hand.  Now all that was left was him not eating, and we'd have our very own wreck.  But I doubted Heero had the capability to become a wreck, that's the kind of thing you see on those soap operas. Really fake stuff, I'm surprised they passed actor school at all.  Heero, would become, and to my knowledge was already becoming…a ghost.

"…Heero! It's only 4 am!" 

I had suddenly spotted the clock pinned up on the wall, and gawked at it for a few seconds at reading off the information it displayed.

"Early start," Heero excused himself, swiftly tidying his bed up with swiftness I could only dream to achieve.  

I heaved an exasperated sigh and flung myself onto my messed up bed, too awake to go back to any remote of dormancy, but too tired to stay awake. Four am.  Yeah, an early start. A four hour early start to be more precise, classes started at eight as far as I could recollect from the information given to me the night before in short snappy sentences as he typed away at his laptop. I stared up at the gentle light from the nightstand lamp and bathroom playing across the high ceiling, wondering if I could will myself to go back to sleep again.

And that's when the lights died.

Everything was pitch black, save the patch of dark blue and a few lone stars outside.  I could see, nothing. Not even my hand in front of my face as I fumbled my way through the tangle of covers that had somehow build up around my feet.

"Urgh…NICE time to have a blackout…Heero? You there?" I called out into the darkness of the room, only to receive not reply. 

"Heero?"

A small snatch of someone giggling echoed from outside. It seemed to fill the air, carried on the cold wind that constantly wound its way across the sky.  It faded to silence again in a second.

"Heero?…eh…is that you?"

A soft voice floated through the breeze once more, and had voice been something solid I'd be sure it would've been translucent.

Mary…Come here Mary…Mary… 

I stumbled towards the window in a hurry, looking outside. Nothing. I could see nothing through the thick woodland beneath me; nothing in the sky…there was nothing.

Are you lost…lost…lost… 

Another snatch of young girls laughter echoed eerily, before fading. I strained my eyes, but still no image appeared to explain the odd sounds that I now knew wasn't coming from Heero.

_Here…this is for you…_

Another supernatural echo of laughter, the soft bark of a dog, all drawn out, stressing the floaty-ness surrounding the voices, and it stopped.  The sounds that had so suddenly accompanied the darkness disappeared just as abruptly into it.  There was only one word to describe it, and that word was, disturbing.

Very disturbing.

Standing there in a perplexed state, I stared outside the large window. The wind had died down again, and everything was peacefully quiet.  With the actual 'peacefulness' suddenly ripped out of it to leave only the hush. I drew back from the window into the silence of the cavernous room, fumbling around in the bags for a flashlight.  A few minutes of searching and I pulled the tool out, flicking it on.

"Heero? Where are ya?" I directed the small torch at all corners of the room, blinking slightly in the dazzling light issuing from it, adjusting my eyes to the change in luminosity. The room being large was quickly getting annoying as I searched for any sign of Heero. I couldn't find him.

Instead, the circle of bright torchlight fell on a withered little flower on the floor.  A flower, here, of all places.  The only reason I paused for a second to look at it was that it stuck out oddly on the dull floor. Its yellowish whiteness was fading quickly, being replaced by dark flecking of brown. The dying stem and leaves sagged onto the floor, having its life drained as I watched, unblinking.

A short drawing in of breath was heard from a few meters behind the flower.  The yellowish radiance of my torch directed immediately to the source.

"I didn't mean to…"

"I didn't mean to kill her…"

"I didn't…"

Heero, sitting with his back flat against the wall, as if he wanted to disappear into it.  His eyes were wide and dead, the kind of look that appears on ones face after a huge shock.  And dry. Painfully dry. His hands were clawing anxiously the floor beneath them.  The rings and etched lines of exhaustion and horror were etched clearer than ever on his face in the dim light.

"Heero…" was all I managed to say, staring incredulously, confused at a Heero who looked just as dead as the wilting flora still decaying rapidly a few meters from him.  He slowly turned his head to direct that dead expression at me.  His hands abruptly ceased their assault on the floor, and his breathing fell still.  He stared at me, through that void appearance of mind, for a few seconds.  If I hadn't known better, I could have sworn he'd died at thought, yet the flesh was still living.  His lips parted and a quiet, deadly calm whisper escaped him.

"I didn't mean to…"

And the battery in the flashlight exhausted it's energy, and we were both bathed in darkness.  I dropped it sharply to the floor, where the plastic shattered against the stone.  Only one monotonous thought could run through my mind as the image of Heero, scared beyond his ability to comprehend as it appeared, sifted through.

This isn't real… 

A/N: O_o;;; Umm…Review? o.O That was an odd chapter…yes indeedy it was…^^;;


	7. Chapter 7 - Book of Ghosts

Title: Ghosts

Warnings: Read the last few chapters -.- You should know by now.

Disclaimer:…you know what goes here…x.x Ownership = Not mine.

  
SI: Sorry I haven't updated for…495749 years -_-

Duo: Yooooou should be! *Bops on head with newspaper*

SI: Heeee~eeeeey! I've had school, 'n now I have limited net access, and I have the flu!..or..something!

Duo: *blinks* Ok..here's what we do 'kay? *Evil grin* You, go make yourself some chicken soup or pour a few tons of alvedon down your throat, and I, the almighty Maxwell, will finish this fic off!

SI: I doooon't trust you with that…

Duo: *Pouts, eyes going all watery* But…but…

SI: Nuuuu! Not they cute sad expression! *Hiss* I'm melting, I'm melting!…ok sure take over. *Defeated look* You can't DO anything about…'The Look' *shuffles off, pouting*  
Duo: *Tries to suppress evil laughter* Works EVERY time, my friends, every time…*cackles*

Heero has always been good at hiding things.  His laptop, for one. I can never find that damn thing when I want to bulldoze it and crush every wire that causes it's evil self to work and function properly. I can't express how much I loathe it.  He's good at hiding how he feels too, I mean what he really feels, the deep-inside-your-heart brooding, but that's actually not too obvious until you actually know he's hiding it. You may just mistake the whole sour angry cold blank attitude with a side order of 'I obey all rules imposed' as the real Heero. In a way…yes, it is. Dr. J did a fine job of ruining what might be a wonderful human being, didn't he?

It's all closed up in there, locked away tightly with the key thrown somewhere for a miracle-worker to relocate. But still, it IS there. He has emotions, he gets angry, sad, frustrated, happy, of course he does, he's not made of metal and wires for crying out loud. He is quiet and withdrawn by nature, so it's not a complete character change you're expecting. Just as I'm active and outgoing by nature, or at least that's what I put out for people to see. But the training, that course should be renamed "Robotisizing with side effects" if anything, crossed the line. I'm sure, had he not gone through with that load of brainwashing bullshit, he wouldn't be making himself out as flawless, as I suspect he's doing. It's the whole issue of denial, of weaknesses – in turn linking to emotions - trying to convince himself that he is just what Dr. J wanted for his terrorist. Perfection.  

Here's a little secret, but keep it under your hat. He isn't perfect. A little closer than your average Joe, but still light-years away. At least not Dr. J's kind of perfect. Heck, that man is insane at any rate so his opinions and what-not are something I don't give a rats ass about. If I ever meet up with him, be it this life or another one, I'm showing no mercy for that sleazebag or his freakishly fake limbs. Maybe, if he was put into our little world of war and battles, he'd see just exactly what his experiments have done to Heero. He's strong. But for crying out loud, he is fifteen years old and has already seen more war than anyone else ever recruited for one, killed more than any high-ranking soldier or officer could ever hope to. Enough already. 

A 'superman' type warrior even though he's only in his mid-teens.  That's his 'problem' if I should refer to it as that.  Not that his emotions are gone, but that he refuses to understand that he can't withstand everything, getting frustrated when there's something that gets him from behind.  It's in that which you find his emotions being trained inwards in a form of intense concentration. He's good at what he does. Really good. But the world is expecting too much from him, and he from himself.  So what you can say is that slowly but surely, he's wearing himself out from the inside and out. Sometimes it surfaces, the sheer fatigue, self-hatred…the lot of emotional problems normal people may acquire. I know for certain that when he was trained, the part of wartime fact that says 'People will die, people you care for will disappear forever and sometimes you will be the only one to blame.' was conveniently left out in hopes that he would assume it was just a minor factor. Fact is, he's fighting for humanity, isn't he? They didn't change a thing; they might even have reinforced his humanity if anything.  But they fucked it up anyway.  I don't know how much more he can take.  I'm sure he used to be a really nice boy. Who wouldn't be? It's so simple. It's not _about_ draining emotions, deleting humanity, human robots with flaws, Heero being trained to listen to his mind and not his heart, _nothing_ of the sort.  It's war. He was raised a soldier, fighting for peace mind you, and he's doing what he has to in achieving it.  He does more than any other pilot is expected to do, and I'm not so stupid as to say I'm better at this than he is. He was trained for it, he has an abnormally strong will to get what he's after. And he's wearing himself out. Fin.  

After the mind-shattering encounter with something I think Heero has very close connections with, I'll try to wring it out of him later, he bolted out the door faster than I could blink.  I'll be damned if I knew what it was, and right then, I was too spooked to really make sense of very much. Later on, it wasn't something I cared to go over again, either.  I didn't have time to say anything before I was in the room on my own again, watching the ancient lights slowly revive themselves with hisses and sparks. The eerie thing was, they decided to come back to life the very moment the slamming door marked Heero's exit. It was only our room that had a short-circuit, too, as I discovered when I inquired with the others later on. By that time, morning was nearing a start.

The hallways were beginning to flood with students, dressed in the same boring old dark blue and white uniform as I was forced to don. The starched shirt and tie was choking me, and the finely pressed dark blue pants made me look like an office worker, which is of course, to me, a disgrace.  Passing people kept staring at my braid as if it was a sign of a foreign occult. Look at my braid in a way I don't approve of, and you life will be considerably shortened. I scanned the mass of foreign largely Scandinavian heads carefully – from a stairway mind you; Europeans are tall – for any sign of Heero marching with dogged determination to class as he always did. I figured it wouldn't be hard to find him in the mass of fair heads swarming through the wide brick-walled corridors with their bright yellowed lights, but it turned out to be a hard feat to accomplish. Being constantly distracted by the array of disturbingly dark and gloomy paintings hung off nails in the walls, and the fact that the house looked as if Dracula had been its interior designer, wasn't much assistance.  It took me a good fifteen minutes to locate him. 

It was on my way back from the cafeteria that I caught sight of Heero again. I'd just snuck in to down a few glasses of orange juice, eat a sandwich or two, and flash sarcastic smiles at all who stared at me as if I was labeled 'Danger. Flammable'. I needed something to keep me going until that night, when we were meant to go through the mission plans, again, my boredom couldn't rise to any higher level. Necessary, yes, but we'd been through the lot of it a few times already. But anyway, just as I passed the library, there he was, flicking through a huge old book with what looked like elderly pages with a lack of wrinkle-cream and soap to brighten their appearance. Yellow and crinkly, in other words. He looked…well…he looked fine, from what I could see from there. See what I mean about him being good at hiding things? He was a wreck last time I laid eyes on him. Not even Quatre, therapist and psychiatrist extraordinaire, would be able to clean up a person mentally with so little time. And Heero rarely spoke to Quatre more than in the language of 'Hn' anyway. 

"Hey, Heero!" 

Nope, I couldn't help myself. I waved a hand containing a half eaten sandwich at him, an unstoppable grin already on my face. Damn smiley-ness. Sometimes I wish I could just morph into a depressed Goth with social problems, at least _SOME_ times. Heero usually didn't approve of my spontaneous outbursts of happiness and joy and right now, I didn't want to cross him.  A pause, which I figured must have been a tool to make me feel unintelligent and juvenile for greeting him in the first place, was all that followed. He nodded quietly, and I was appalled to note the absence of a customary greeting 'Hn' as he returned to flicking the pages idly. 

"Hey…ah…history class in half an hour, want me to wait for you?"

He shook his head again. I would wait, whether he approved of it or not, I needed to keep check of him. I purposely avoided the subject of the early morning happenings, as he seemed to have recovered from that pretty well, and reminding him as I guessed would probably result in me lacking a head.  Though I **was** tempted to ask him what the _hell _happened, as I was genuinely confused.  I'd just heard some voices and the wind blow a bit, the lights went out, yeah, I'll give him that…but Heero isn't afraid of voices, nor does he give two craps about the dark. He works in it at least fifty percent of the week. And a flower? Why would Heero be afraid of a dying specimen of flora?  I hate needing half an hour to wake up properly.  It deprives me of useful logic and general wakefulness if it's needed directly upon waking up, which this situation demanded.

"…What're you reading? We haven't gotten any assignments yet you know…" 

I decided to joke with him; having always been the one who liked teasing him for studying out of class even though I knew it was because he wanted no attention drawn to him for slacking off. I bet, had we been 'normal', he'd have skipped his summer and winter holidays to do homework, just out of habit.

"Nothing very important, Duo," He replied in an agitated voice, obviously wanting me to piss off and die. Or at least that's what it sounded like. You never really know until you've toed the line, do you?

"Like hell it isn't, how stupid do you think I am? Dusty old volume, reading in the early hours of school, look of concentration on your face, equals without question: important. Common sense, and believe it or not I've got some," I replied casually, sweeping a finger over a page to leave a trail where dust had been carried away.

"Suppose you're right about that," He came with, raising an eyebrow amusedly at my logic before returning to his reading. I wasn't going to get much out of him, was I.  What was I doing, anyway? He was often reading, why was it so odd this time around? I must be getting paranoid. Like a mother goose character. Urgh.

I took a seat across from him, grabbing the nearest piece of reading material available to me.  I couldn't help but quirk an eyebrow at the title.

"Local Horror Stories," I read with an obvious air of confusion. I turned to look at Heero, who looked up at me with an eyebrow raised questioningly. 

"Um…Heero…since when are you interested in fictitious horror stories?" I asked calmly, as if he was an insane man and I was interrogating him. He let the soft 'hm' of what I suspected was a chuckle escape him before returning to his book once more, without answering my question. I shrugged my shoulders and replaced the book, assuming that maybe it was someone else's and I'd made a simple mistake in thinking it was his. That or he'd just grabbed random books off the shelves to evaluate the libraries selection, or something of the sorts. Settling back in my chair, hands held comfortably against the back of my head, I waited the arrival of the first lesson.

Shouldn't it have been obvious, that lessons were announced by the sharpest, most ear-wrecking bell known to man? To put it simply, as soon as that terror of sound-making-mechanisms began screaming, all hands were clamped over the owner's ears and eyes were squeezed shut in anticipation that it'd just shut up soon. I managed to topple off my chair and crash into a heavy book case (Yes, because of it's weight I was able to avoid the bookcase domino effect), Heero was content with covering his ears and glaring at his book while the shock to our hearing senses subsided.

"Ah cripes…" I muttered quietly, getting to my feet and rubbing the spot on my head that had been unfortunate enough to collide with solid rock floor. While my vision slowly rolled into focus, I fumbled for my bag and slung it oddly over my shoulder. Heero was already on his feet, closing the book and pushing his chair in neatly behind him. He waited for me to stop wobbling around like a madman before beginning his way out of the library doors.  My dazed expression prompted him to remind me exactly what I was meant to do next.

"History class. Third floor," He paused, casting a glance at the clock located above the exit, " You've got five minutes," He declared, turning on his heel and melting in with the crowd that had assembled outside.

I would've liked to have followed him, but my aching head was preventing me from going anywhere in the next few seconds.  But lo and behold, speedy recovery was with me, and my vision cleared up in less than half a minute.

"First I wake up too early, then the whole weird thing, and now that nasty old bell…" my mutterings attracted the attention of the elderly librarian, whose mouth scrunched up in disapproval at the curses that followed. I had a good urge to tell her to shove her face down a toilet bowl, where it clearly belonged. No, I'm not a morning person at all.

I was about to leave for class – I knew I was late. But the knock to my head served some use at least, and I checked the title written on the cover of Heero's book. Or tried. It was hard to make out, it being an ancient book and the letters were peeling as I looked at it. I saw a 'G' and some other letters that looked oddly like 'Oatmeal' when put together. Hmph, dumb thing. I felt extremely juvenile, and wanted to throw a tantrum right there and then…ok, so not quite. I was just in a sour mood, it happens.

Flipping the book over, I pulled the sign-out card out of its conveniently located pocket in the back.  A few signatures, all in different colored pens on the familiar blue-grid piece of placard paper and printed at the top in Times New Roman print, a title… 

"Ghosts"

I don't know why my blood froze; there really was no reason for it to. I don't know why I suddenly felt so cold, but it was something about that simple title that in this castle was so wrong.  And something else, something to do with this morning that stirred up a awful feeling of nausea and dread in the pit of my stomach. I knew exactly why Heero – of all the books he could be reading - had been reading this one. My mind was cleared instantly, all against my will, and bits of an unfinished puzzle flew together to give me a glimpse of the picture it would form.  I _didn't_ like the picture.

I passed the librarians high desk.  I put the book in front of her. I signed it out. And all the while, I couldn't help but thinking.  About the gutted children.  The voices.  The rotting petals of the flower. And it struck me, like a blow to the side of the head but in a kind of numb slow motion.

Shit.

I wasn't imagining it all. 

TBC__

A/N: SI:*Blinks* Umm…yeah…this whole fic is in general gonna be a bit weird, but I think you guessed that already e.e; Sorry AGAIN that I haven't updated in such a long time! Blahblahblah..x.X Anyways, this fic is…maybe halfway finished? I don't really know, heh. ^^

Shinigami: She just admitted to being stupid…which…shouldn't be hard to do in her case.

Kame: *nods* 

SI: Tell me, why are muses always so…arrogantly sarcastically super evil?


End file.
